Gypsy Wife and Grandies (grandchildren)

Gypsy Wife Quilt

I finished Sections 3 and 4, here they are just quickly pinned on the wall

along with Sections 1 and 2 just as they will be stitched in the

quilt.

Excuse all the extra surrounding bits!

One of the blocks above has a connection with the fabric below and I have to tell

you the story!

Friday morning last week we had our two youngest grandsons over

 for a few hours, one 5yrs and one 3yrs. They came along to my little studio with me

to see where I did all my sewing.

I have a large basket with children's fabrics, most of them are

Laurel Burch and the one below I fell in love with

many years ago, think I have around 4 yards. I thought it would be just

the thing for a quilt for the 5yr old, lifted the basket down and yes this

was without doubt what he wanted for his quilt.

No pattern decided on at that point but he then pulled off the bottom left  GW block

from the design wall, tiny flower centre and three rounds of strips.

"Grandma, why don't we put parrots and all the other

animals and birds in the middle instead of the flower and can I help make it and sew

with the string"

says he!!!

OK pattern now decided. Meanwhile the 3yr old is rummaging in

my two clean up cut bins putting the strips together - very colour

co-ordinated I may add.

Perhaps, as my husband commented, we have two prospective quilters??

Tuesday this week middle two grandchildren 13yrs and 11yrs spent the day

with us and we all went out for lunch,

then grand-daughter decided she would like to make some of

my savoury cheese muffins

and didn't she make a good job of them!! Tasty with lots of cheese,

chopped bell pepper and celery all topped off with crunchy cheese.

What a lovely week but not much quilting,

I'll try and catch up today.

This and That

I just couldn't seem to get going again this week on the quilting

side of things. I worked  on stitching down three of my teapots

by machine appliqué

so that I can have a finish at the end of the quarter.

Gypsy Wife blocks were on the agenda, one of the

simple ones below

and what a pleasure to make this one after taking absolutely ages

on the Colourwheel block, purely because I changed

the fabric arrangement four times!!! That one can be posted

at the end of month link party.

The need to begin a new project or two was presenting problems

because the motivation didn't seem to be there to sit down and decide

just what I would like to make next. Monday I read the post

from 

Wanda at Exuberant Color
who had made blocks using up strips, I commented that
I had a huge bin of clean up cuts which would be
just the thing for these, I figured they would be a change
from the full on concentration of GW blocks.
 A fun two hours yesterday and I came up with

the four blocks above, my thoughts were it had been fun but they would  languish in
my parts box.
They stayed on the design wall until the evening
when I had the idea of making a large cushion and out came my
white pin dot on black

and arrived here, and I love it!! But …. I like it so much
that I'm considering a medallion quilt, the question is would I go totally
scrappy to fit in with these blocks, or would that be too much??
I would definitely use more black/white fabrics which would tone things
down a little if it became too jazzy!
What do you think?

Maureen

Barns and Gypsies

Let's begin with this

Build a Barn

by Julie Sefton
who blogs at
Me and My Quilts - Exploring the Possibilities

My copy arrived here in Auckland, New Zealand after
a lovely trip with a few stops along the way!
I checked the tracking site daily - three different stops in Tennessee,
three in Florida and lo and behold a night in Taiwan, so this is
a well travelled book indeed.

It's a beauty, and later this evening I shall be sitting and reading!
Congratulations Julie!

Next stop - Gypsy Wife

part of Section 3 in the making, there are two more

blocks, 10" and a 9" (thank goodness) to add to this and then on to

Section 4.

Such an enjoyable quilt to be making but patience is needed - and a 

seam ripper!

For some easy stitching I've been sewing tumblers into pairs

these were begun as a leader/ender project but I'm just pushing

them through now whenever I can!

Another RSC 2016 coming up this weekend, see you then.

FAL 2016 Quarter 2

How on earth did we get into April??

Three months to try and finish up the list below, one quilting project was

listed in the 1st Quarter and is being carried over here.

To be quilted are:

Scrap Rainbow

The Northern Lights

Paintbox


To have sashing and borders added

Teapots

I do have two more finishes which were going to be included here
but I decided not to go into over drive!

Heading off now to link up with the
2016 Finish-A-Long 2nd Quarter
party!

Autumn Colours

It's a real Autumn day here - but a very wet one.

Things have been slow this week for quilting, blame it on the weather and

not feeling too great after having my yearly 'flu shot. However,

I have my two houses in orange with black accents, and a lot

of other accents in my case as usual!

I've given them dark skies to match the day!

I've decided to bring my small quilting frame up into the

sitting room for the Winter, I can fit a 60" wide quilt

 with two basted and ready to go a I should be quite snug

sitting there hand quilting again.

Oh I have another Autumn flower here, a new hibiscus

isn't she glorious!

I've added some bright colour to my little studio with a plastic carry bin, I love

turquoise but usually go for a little more subdued.

For more colour I'm linking up now with

Angela for RSC 2016

and
Oh Scrap!
later today.

Happy Quilting

Maureen

Two late stars and fabric stash

Below are the two stars just finished by the end of March but too late

for the last purple link of the month with
Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2016

which is now orange with black/brown accents.
Something in these colours posting next week.

A package with a few of the Spring 2016 fabrics
from the Kaffe Fasset Collective - spoiled for choice with the
range on offer!!

The bottom fabric above is a beauty and I ordered in three
colourways.

I love the very dark Aboriginal Dot.  I have used a piece from each of
two daisy fabrics in the strips for Gypsy Wife, no plans for a project using
these other fabrics presently, just going to add them to my stash.

There are fabrics over every almost every surface in my studio at the moment
so tomorrow will be spent tidying and I reckon it's going to take the best part of a full day to do it.
I also need to work on some parts of my blog, adding pages, sorting out the
blog list - which I lost for some reason early this week and it's taken a while
to get everyone back on my side bar! At least I hope I have
everyone back on there.

It's early Sunday evening here in New Zealand so I'd better go and join
the link for
Rainbow Scrap Challenge
and
Oh Scrap!
looks like quite a lot of folk already there,  see you all during the week.
Happy Quilting.